


Resurfacing

by inoru_no_hoshi



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-02 23:41:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inoru_no_hoshi/pseuds/inoru_no_hoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drugs are only the most obvious thing to be under the influence of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resurfacing

**Author's Note:**

> This rides a really weird line between past and present tense, and the only reason I'm not fixing it rigorously is because it's _River_ and she _totally_ thinks like this.
> 
> Written for the prompt _Joss verse (Angel, Buffy, Firefly, etc.), author's choice, under the influence_ on [fic_promptly](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org).

She doesn't clearly remember what happened once the commercial triggered her. It was like she was shoved to the back of her own mind, her body moving on auto-pilot even as she fought the conditioning that had her taking down every person in the Maidenhead.

Simon cutting her off with the command phrase filled her with relief, for the split second before she collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

When she comes to and still isn't quite herself, she despairs, because her mind ought to be her own even though she knows she may never be alone in her own head again. Too much noise in the 'verse, even out in the black on _Serenity_. But this— This she can see how to bring it up to the surface, excise it from her mind like the festering wound it was, so she does.

She does feel a little bad about tricking Jayne, and scaring everyone else, but she doesn't have the words, the presence of her right mind, to do it any other way. The one good thing she can say for it is that she's off enough that it makes Mal curious, and when Mal gets curious, he investigates because he needs to _know_ (for his peace of mind, because he's always seeking, searching, learning more and more so he can care for his people. She likes that, it makes her feel safe).

On Miranda, she is at once lost in the waves of the dead that are everywhere, omnipresent, pressing down and into her mind and saying so much _nothing_ that she _hurts_ in a way she hadn't known she could. 

And yet, in the Alliance rescue ship, she watches the hologram, the proof of how the Alliance meddled and created both a silent horror and a terror of the Rimworlds in one blow, she feels the secret she has been pushing and pushing and letting drive her wiggle lose, float away, and she feels lighter even as she collapses to the floor and retches up the last of the slimy sickness it's left her with.

When Simon bends, puts his hand on her shoulder, asks if she's alright, she says, "I'm fine."

She's surprised that it's true, that she's not telling him a half-truth. It's a nice kind of different.


End file.
